Dating is an integral part of finding someone to marry. But searching for the right person to spend your life with can also take a toll on the pocketbook.
Even if you’re already married, continuing to date your spouse has many advantages, although, at the same time, your budget may be even tighter than before. Consistently dating your spouse is statistically linked to a happier and sturdier marriage, according to a study from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Wheatley Institute. Researchers found that there were many benefits as a result of continued dating after tying the knot, including better communication, commitment, de-stressing, and shared novel experiences.
But often, once you’re married, the expenses of running a household and raising children leave less money and time for dating.
To help meet this challenge, here are 12 ideas for dates that don’t have to take an enormous chunk out of your day or your paycheck. This list is for anyone operating on a budget—whether you’re still seeking a spouse or you already have one but wish to foster romance in your relationship.
Just Talk
The essence of human connection is communication—the sharing between souls. But true conversation is more and more a lost art. To help you get started with this date idea, consider using a deck of conversation-starting cards, such as the “Couples” edition of Questions for Humans.Turn on your favorite music in the background to help create the mood.
Cook Together
For centuries, meals have nourished not just the human body but human connections as well. The closeness of families and couples grows out of the sharing of the simple, sacred daily realities of eating, sleeping, working, playing, and praying together.Related Stories
Cooking a gourmet meal as a couple will be a gift of nourishment to each other’s bodies and hearts alike. The experience will be even more integral and therefore romantic if you caught, grew, or gathered the food with your own hands.
In “The Art of the Commonplace,” Wendell Berry wrote:
Only by restoring the broken connections can we be healed. Connection is health. And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is. We lose our health ... by failing to see the direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving.Health in this context can apply to our physical health but also our cultural health or even our relationship health.
Have a Poetry Night
Great poetry is for everybody, not just the elite. Poetry isn’t meant to sit, dust-entombed on a shelf—it’s meant to be spoken, to spark to life in the air, in your breath, to enter into real relationships between real people. Not to mention, many of the greatest poems are love poems. Make it a part of your relationship with your beloved.Here are a few classics to get you started:
- “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds Admit Impediments“
- “How do I Love Thee?“
- “To Althea, From Prison“
- “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars“
- “Bright Star“
- “A Red, Red Rose“
Visit a Winery or Brewery
Wineries, at least in my part of the country, are often located in picturesque settings with rolling hills lined with twisting grapes. With such a backdrop and glass of wine “cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,/Tasting of Flora and the country green,” good conversation will naturally follow.Choose a Direction and Drive
A spontaneous car trip with no set destination can enliven a date with a sense of adventure and the unexpected. You don’t know what’s over the horizon or when you may come to a restaurant, park, cemetery, orchard, or museum you wish to stop at. Put on your favorite songs, and, as you sweep through the constantly changing landscape, side-by-side, it’s like being in a music video.Play the Thrift Store Game
The rules are very simple: Each person receives a small amount of money—say, $5—to buy the other person a gift from a thrift store. It takes some ingenuity to find something that your date would like from among the eclectic collection of items in a thrift store—especially for so little money. It forces you to think about your date in a new way—their likes and dislikes, their temperament. And it may result in some odd and humorous purchases. You never know what you might find.When my wife and I played this, we did pretty well; she found a record I was excited about, and I found her a pair of shoes that were ... decent.
Golf, but Not Golf
If you both have a competitive edge, consider some of the cheaper alternatives to an afternoon on the golf course: mini golf or frisbee golf. Both of these alternatives are pretty inexpensive, but they get you outside and active (well, a bit).The slight ridiculousness of mini-golf will only add to the fun.
Play Pickleball
Exercising with your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend brings physical benefits while deepening your bond with one another. It’s almost guaranteed to be a fun time, since, when you exercise, your body releases endorphins, making you feel happier.One way to do that is through pickleball, which is the fastest-growing sport in the United States. Pickleball is a sport similar to tennis—you use paddles to hit a plastic ball back and forth over a net—and is accessible to all ages and skill levels.
If you’re just playing casually, you don’t have to get a lot of expensive, high-end gear. According to Pickleball University, a starter paddle only costs about $15, and balls are $1 per ball. There are plenty of free, public courts around the world, although they may sometimes be crowded.
Getting started is pretty inexpensive. Of course, you can sink more money into the sport if you want to (with high-end gear, private court fees, and so forth), but you wouldn’t have to if you’re trying to economize.
Visit a Historic House
If you’re less sports-inclined and more interested in history, consider taking a tour of a historic mansion. You’ll get to see beautiful architecture, period clothing, and furnishings, as well as learn about your local history from the (generally) knowledgeable tour guides. Tour fees will vary, of course, but are usually less than $20 per person.
Go Geocaching
Another more active option, geocaching involves the use of a GPS to hide or find containers called “caches,” which are hidden all around the world. You can use the geocaching app to find and visit caches near you. They could be anywhere: along a park trail, under a tree, in a storm drain, and so forth. Caches often contain various items or “prizes”—books, maps, tickets, trinkets, or jewelry. If you take something, it’s expected that you'll leave something too.In addition to participating in the fun of “the world’s biggest treasure hunt,” geocaching is a great way to get to know your local terrain better.
Volunteer
Part of the purpose of dating is to learn to see your date with fresh eyes, to wash away the film of familiarity that clouds our vision and prevents us from fully appreciating our loved ones. Dates place you in new situations and contexts to jolt you out of the familiar and see a new or forgotten side of your husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend.While volunteering may not, at first glance, seem as romantic as wine or poetry, it'll certainly break up the familiar routine. In addition to bringing much-needed relief to others, it may show you the kindness and good-heartedness of your loved one in a new way as you watch them interact with others who need their help.
Stargaze
This is a classic for a reason. Take a basket of refreshments, an astronomy guide, and set up with a good view of the stars and minimal light pollution. If a telescope is too expensive, don’t worry. You can still see a great deal with the naked eye.“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote.
Although the stars will return every night for age after age, the one there beside you will never be repeated—he or she is unique, irreplaceable, a gleam of light in this moment of history and no other. Treasure him or her as such.
